


Old Habits

by lateralus112358



Series: Discussion Between Professionals [6]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 20:32:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11767809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: Dr. Shaw reflects on her career and her relationship with Special Agent Root. Other things also happen.





	Old Habits

****

**7:48 PM (two months before apotheosis)**

John Reese takes a hand off the rifle, and reaches around to scratch the back of his head. He shifts slightly, trying to relieve the slow creep of numbness in one of his legs. He keeps one eye in the sights of the gun.

He’s been tracking Samaritan’s movements for months now, and more specifically, the movements of Greer, Samaritan’s top agent. He’s a very careful man, but Reese is, particularly since Root’s absence, a person of singular focus. That’s something he and she had both shared, a near-fanatical devotion to the mission. Neither of them had anything else, after all.

He thinks she’s probably still alive. She has a god with her, after all. He hasn’t sought her out, though. Too dangerous, for both of them, and their mission. He knows she would understand, because he understands her doing the exact same thing.

It’s been… different without her. Calmer, in some ways. She was an excellent partner, and somewhat surprisingly, a rather good friend, but there was no denying that at times she could be a bit much. He’s been enjoying the quiet lately, punctuated only occasionally by clashes with Samaritan. They think he’s dead, and he has to be very careful to maintain that illusion.

Reese shifts again. The cold stone beneath him doesn’t lend itself to even a brief rest, much less an hours-long stakeout.

He’d tracked Greer to what seems to be Samaritan’s current base of operations, an office building opposite the roof on which he currently rests. They’re erratic, though, with only a few people ever here at one time, picking up weapons from a storeroom, or accessing one of the computers. Greer he’s only seen once. Reese could take out some of the agents, or destroy their armory, or try and cripple their network (a task that Root would be much better suited to, honestly), but he does none of these. Greer is the head of the snake, and he needs to cut it off.

A light comes on in the building. Through the windows, Reese tracks several figures, one of them small and grey-headed. Reese sees Greer’s mouth move, and then the other two agents move out of his viewing range.

And then motion from the other end of the building. Reese moves his rifle, fixing the sights on a window near the entrance. A woman is striding across the floor.

Root.

Damn, she beat him to it. She comes to a stop in front of Greer, and they exchange words.

Suddenly Reese wishes he’d used some of his spare time to learn how to read lips. 

The two other Samaritan agents return to Greer’s sides, a few more words are said, and then weapons are drawn and pandemonium ensues. The agents fire on Root, who ducks and rolls, returning fire. Grimacing, Reese takes a few shots as well, shattering one of the building’s windows. Maybe they’ll be so occupied with Root that they won’t even bother to look in Reese’s direction.

They are, as it turns out. Stroke of luck.

Not that they’d be able to see him anyway. But underestimating Greer has served them poorly in the past. 

The two Samaritan agents are down, and Root, bringing both of her guns up, lays into Greer. He holds no weapon of his own, and doesn’t even flinch as a dozen bullets enter his chest and torso.

Huh. That is… unexpected. Reese opens fire on Greer as well. Unfortunately, he is noticed this time, and one of the downed Samaritan agents, not as dead as she appeared earlier, fires off several shots in Reese’s direction, forcing him to duck down behind the stone lip surrounding the building’s roof.

He leans back over the edge when the coast seems clear. The other Samaritan agent is down again, but Root is looking rough. She’s taken at least a few bullets, and is leaning heavily on one of the computer desks. Greer stands before her, having apparently acquired a weapon of some sort. Reese opens fire on him again. The man may be borderline invincible, but at some point his body is going to consist more of bullets then flesh and bones, and that should at least give him pause.

And apparently it does, as he starts backing up, alternating between firing vague shots in Reese’s direction, and significantly less vague shots at Root. She manages to avoid a few, but takes others, obviously near the end of her endurance. Which is odd. With a god at her side, this should be nothing to her.

Reese’s continued fire drives Greer back, and eventually he disappears from Reese’s sight. He quickly descends from the roof, drawing a pistol and keeping it held towards the ground, rifle slung over his shoulder, as he crosses over to the other building. Up a flight of stairs, and he enters the room where the shootout took place. Shattered glass decorates the floors, and now-useless computers bearing bullet holes rest forlornly on desks. Reese does a quick sweep, finding no one except Root, not even the apparently still not dead Samaritan agents. He rushes over to Root, who’s collapsed onto the floor, blood pooling out around her. She’s unconscious, but she still has a pulse. He tries to staunch the blood as much as he can, but it soon becomes clear that the situation is far beyond anything he’s able to deal with. He pulls out his phone and dials 911, tersely gives the operator only the necessary information, and hangs up. He resumes staunching the blood, until he’s interrupted by a sudden presence in his mind. 

_The police will be arriving shortly, Mr. Reese, and I believe it would be preferable if you were not present when they do._

“You couldn’t have helped her?” Reese asks harshly. 

_I am sorry. I have been… conserving my strength. There is a confrontation coming, and it bears a tinge of finality._

“I’m not leaving her.” 

_You cannot help her here, Mr. Reese. I have other people in place who will be able to aid her. You, meanwhile, have another task._

“Fine,” Reese says, frustrated. He’s never been comfortable with entities taking up residence inside his mind, unlike Root, who seems to welcome it. He wipes blood off onto his pants, and asks, “Where to now?” 

__

***

  
****

**8:07 PM**

Dr. Shaw is a perfectionist. She always has been. When she worked on live patients, her work was unparalleled; her success-to-death ratio was higher than anyone else on staff, even if all her whiny-ass patients completely failed to notice it. She could say without any arrogance that she was the finest doctor the hospital employed, and she did say it on several occasions.

She never felt the need to omit the arrogance.

Even now, when her success-to-death ratio is asymptotically approaching zero, her work remains pristine. It’s largely irrelevant, since the cadavers rarely make complaints, but doing something effectively, doing something _right_ , is what actually matters. Excellence _is_ the reward, not the means to reach a reward.

And so when a body comes across her table bearing obvious signs of shoddy work from her colleagues upstairs, she can’t help but be annoyed. Not because she particularly cares that the woman set before her died. It’s a hospital. People die. And realistically, the woman had been in a bad way, and probably would have died regardless of how skilled her doctors were. What Dr. Shaw finds annoying is the lack of discipline on the part of people who would presume themselves to be her peers. During her residency, she was aware of a number of these sorts of troglodytes who were jealous of her ability, thinking her some sort of savant. In truth, there was nothing special about her; she was better than they were because she worked harder. This idea would be utterly unacceptable to them, Shaw knows, since it would rob them of their excuse to continue toiling in mediocrity.

At least they have good bedside manner with all the patients they end up killing.

Her phone, set on the desk behind her, vibrates. She always puts it on silent when she’s working; the ringer echoes painfully off the metal and stone of the room. It’s probably Special Agent Root, trying to worm her way into Dr. Shaw’s bed again. 

An idea which the doctor is highly amenable to, especially since Root has been largely absent for the past few days. Usually the woman likes to make a menace of herself at least a few times each day, appearing out of thin air, paying no apparent heed to the job she supposedly has, but it’s been two days now since Shaw has heard from her, apart from a few texts of an explicit nature. Perhaps, for once, her clandestine government job requires her to do something other than get fucked senseless in Shaw’s bed. Or on Shaw’s couch. Or, once, in her car.

Shaw grits her teeth and pushes these images out of her mind. She needs to get a grip on herself.

Dr. Shaw had first encountered Special Agent Root nearly a year ago, after a rash of bizarre murders that had left Shaw’s morgue full to the brim, and the police department utterly baffled. The similar (or at least, similarly unusual) nature of the crimes had led the department to suspect some manner of serial killer, but Shaw knew, through occasional chats with Detective Carter, that they were completely out of their depth, and that there had been some talk about contacting the FBI, or the CIA, or _somebody_ who could deal with the city’s sudden influx of unnatural crimes. 

As far as Shaw is aware, no contact with other agencies was ever made, but a few weeks later, Special Agent Root arrived. Tall, slender and graceful, flashing her government badge with a perpetual smirk that belied a hidden lethality, Root had appointed herself to the task of investigating all the unusual killings taking place in the city. This had meant, of course, that she and all the innuendo she could bring to bear made themselves regular visitors to Dr. Shaw’s morgue.

Shaw had disliked her immediately.

But Root had grown on her eventually, like some sort of fungus, and now she’s impossible to remove.

Despite the fact that, for all appearances, she rarely did her job, Special Agent Root had ultimately caught the perpetrator. The rash of crimes, however, while slowed, did not stop entirely. Every week or so Dr. Shaw had a body show up on her table with its bones melted, or blood vessels frozen, or something else even less comprehensible, and Special Agent Root had continued her fight against these malefactors and whatever shadowy force was compelling them. Dr. Shaw is aware that Root knows far more than she is letting on, and is possibly in the possession of some unnatural powers of her own, though neither of them have verbally acknowledged this, making it one of many issues they skillfully dance around. 

Shaw’s phone vibrates again, and she takes off her gloves and sets them down on the table. Stringing Root along can be amusing, but she’s not really feeling it today. And honestly, she’s gotten used to a warm body sleeping beside her, as well as the agent’s thorough ministrations beforehand. For all her longstanding sentiments about relationships, the entire thing has been remarkably smooth in its progression, even bordering on pleasant at times. Two fucked-up individuals together should, by all logic, equal one really fucked-up relationship, and perhaps it does, but somehow it works. 

She picks up the phone. Two missed calls, one text. She checks the text first.

**PICK UP**

Not Root. Carter. The missed calls are from her as well. Frowning, Shaw dials back.

“Shaw?”

“Yeah. Any particular reason you’re blowin’ up my phone?”

“It’s Root.”

“What’s she done this time?”

“It’s hard to tell, but we think she was in some sort of shootout. Shaw, it’s pretty bad.”

Shaw’s voice is flat and devoid of inflection, her face completely blank. “Dead?”

“No. She’s lost a lot of blood, but she’s still hanging on so far. They’re loading her in the ambulance now. I gotta go, but I’ll update you whenever I can, all right?”

Shaw hangs up without responding. She stands so perfectly still that a stranger might be forgiven for thinking her some sort of statue. Systematically, undetectable by the eye, she relaxes each taut muscle in her body.

Then she blinks, and walks out of the room, body left on the table, still mid-way through its final surgery.

She never did work on her bedside manner.

***

  
****

**8:15 PM**

No fanfare accompanies Dr. Shaw’s return to the floors of the hospital above her cold, quiet domain. No dramatic, Latin-speaking choir punctuates her footsteps as she stalks down the halls. No exclamations of surprise are heard from the other personnel at the presence of their long-absent colleague. Even Shaw herself spares only a few moments to note that she has not walked these white corridors for the better part of five years, before discarding the thought and focusing solely on the matter at hand.

The emergency room is in pandemonium, and Dr. Shaw suddenly vividly recalls why she detests dealing with patients who are still breathing. The screams of small children, voices of nurses arguing with irate patients, and several televisions all playing different things at once combine to form a sort of sonic wall that presses its oppressive weight on all sides. Shaw pushes through people, not bothering to apologize, until she locates a nurse, looking exhausted and frazzled. She jumps when Dr. Shaw taps her shoulder.

“Who’s the attending tonight?”

The nurse stares at her blankly for a few moments, before comprehending Shaw’s query. “Oh! Dr. Tillman.”

“There’s a woman on the way here,” Shaw tells her. “The ambulance should be here any minute. Don’t bother paging Dr. Tillman, I’m handling this one.”

She starts to move away, but the nurse pushes through massed patients after her. “Um, who are you?”

“Shaw.”

The nurse frowns. “Aren’t you… the mortician?”

“I’m a goddamn doctor.” Shaw says flatly. “I need you to get me at least two on-call nurses, and a shitload of blood. B positive, Rh positive. Can you do that?”

The nurse, evidently convinced of Shaw’s capability, or just too exhausted to mount any more questions, nods, “Right away,” and dashes off.

Dr. Shaw steps outside and watches as the ambulance pulls up, lights and siren blaring. An EMT dashes around and opens the back door, and he and the other man inside quickly remove the gurney from the vehicle. Root’s entire lower torso is covered in blood, and blood-soaked gauze. An oxygen mask lays over her nose and mouth, connected to a tank that one of the EMTs carries. Her skin is pale, her eyes closed, her hair matted and knotted with sweat and blood.

“Get her to Trauma.” Shaw tells them, and they nod, no questions asked, and rapidly move towards the building. “Fill me in,” Shaw instructs as they walk.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” one of the EMTs replies. “We tried to stop it, but I think it only worked because she’s running out. Pulse is there, but it’s erratic. Same with her breathing.” They reach their destination, and the two EMTs lift Root off the gurney and onto the table. Shaw looks around, sees that her two requested nurses are present, and turns back to the EMTs. “I’ve got it from here.” Two more nods, and they quickly move away.

She looks towards her nurses as she pulls on a pair of gloves. “Go!” She barks at them, and they spring into motion. “Don’t wait for me to tell you what to do,” she says, beginning to check Root’s wounds to find the most pressing issue. “You’re professionals. I’m not going to baby you. We’re going to save this woman’s life.” She looks up, fixes them with a firm stare. “Got it?”

***

  
****

**10:03 PM**

“You know,” Dr. Shaw turns to see Detective Carter leaning against the wall just inside the room. “They have doctors here who specialize in live patients.”

Shaw snorts. “Like I’d let those butchers touch her.”

“Tillman’s pretty good. I think you’d like her.” Carter says. Shaw, seated in a chair beside Root’s bed, gives a noncommittal grunt. “How’s she doing?”

Various monitors connected to Root by tubes and wires emit periodic beeps. Her breathing, while ragged, remains fairly steady. “Stable, for now.” Shaw says. “Stopped the bleeding. Drained blood out of her lung. Sewed her up. The blood loss might end up causing permanent damage, but her insides are so torn up I doubt she’ll live long enough for it to matter.” Her voice is even, disaffected. Carter moves forward and puts a hand on her shoulder.

Even after so long, Shaw’s mind and her hands had retained their muscle memory, and she had quickly fallen into her old rhythm while working on Root. She had not, however, managed to entirely recapture the cold detachment that had defined every operation she’d ever done before. She’d found a place in her mind where she could close herself off, but she could always feel the knowledge lurking just outside, the knowledge that this one was different. That Root was different. 

“Excuse me,” A voice comes from the doorway. “Is this Samantha Groves’s room?”

Shaw turns to the owner of the voice, a woman, dressed in black, her eyes fixed on Root. Shaw starts to stand, and the woman’s eyes flick to her and Detective Carter, and she slips one of the strange Samaritan guns from inside her jacket.

“Now, we have no interest in hurting you,” She says, walking over to the bed, gun trained on Shaw and Carter, an amiable tone to her voice. “And frankly we’d rather have Miss Groves here alive as well, so as long as you cooperate, everyone gets out of this alive.” Her eyes flick towards Root, to the tubes and machines connected to her. She turns back to Shaw and Carter. “Wouldn’t do to have her kick the bucket on the way, so I’m going to need you…” Her voice trails off, and she frowns briefly, then her eyes roll upward as her body pitches forward, collapsing on the ground. Shaw deftly snatches the gun from her hand as it travels to the floor.

“I’m starting to lose a bit of respect for Root,” she says, bending down to pull the syringe from the woman’s thigh. “These people are morons.” Ever since her out-of-work time spent with Root had started involving people attacking her and shooting at her, Shaw had made it a habit to carry around several syringes and bottles of sedatives on her person at all times.

“If you ever want to join the force, just let me know.” Carter says, a note of admiration in her voice. “We could use you.”

“Not really my style.” Shaw shoves the unconscious woman out of the way with her foot, and sits back down. “You want to call someone to get this sad sack out of here?”

As Carter moves away to do so, Shaw feels her phone buzz. Frowning, she pulls it from her pocket. Root and Carter are two of only three people with her number. And she doubts her mom is texting her at this time of night. She pulls up the text screen, and stares at it blankly.

The message is from Root.

Shaw shakes herself. Root must have sent it before her shootout, and it only just managed to reach Shaw’s phone.

**SENT FROM Root**

**Check her wounds.**

What the hell was Root trying to say? Whose wounds? Did she intend to send this to someone else? While Shaw sits in bafflement, another message comes in.

**SENT FROM Root**

**Soon, sweetie, before the lovely detective takes the body away.**

Now Shaw’s angry. Someone, likely one of the Samaritan agents who nearly killed her, stole Root’s phone and decided to impersonate her to mock Shaw. They must be near, if they know about the downed woman in the room. Or maybe they just have access to security cameras. Shaw scans the room but finds no evidence that such devices are present. She sends a message back.

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**Who the fuck is this?**

And almost immediately hears a muffled buzz from somewhere in the room. Confusion reaching even more ambitious heights, Shaw stands and moves closer to Root’s unconscious form, grabs one of her legs to lift her slightly, and reaches around to her back pocket to pull out her phone. She stares at it blankly, struggling to arrive at a conclusion that can reconcile what she’s seeing, and coming up short. Her own phone buzzes again.

**SENT FROM Root**

**Not exactly the best time to try and feel me up, sweetie.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**You could have at least waited until I was awake so I could enjoy it. ;)**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Besides, you have more important things to do, remember?**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**I have no idea who you are, or how you’re doing this, but I swear I am going to find you**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Sameen, it’s me. You know, the girl who sleeps in your bed most nights?**

**SENT FROM Root**

**I can prove it, if you want.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**I can tell you about your tattoo. Doubt many other people know about that.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Or the little box of toys you keep in your bottom drawer.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**I borrowed one of them last week, by the way. Don’t worry, I’ll get it back to you.**

Shaw grimaces. The information, and the obvious pleasure taken in divulging it, could only come from Root. She types a message back.

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**OK, fine. So, how? What the hell is going on?**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Sameen, after everything you’ve seen this past year, is this really so hard to believe?**

Dr. Shaw considers. She had suspected Root possessed some sort of ‘superpower,’ and apparently she does. Specifically, the ability to send texts while unconscious.

What an awful fucking superpower. No wonder she never mentioned it. Shaw types another message.

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**So what were you saying about the wounds?**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Sorry, gotta go. Don’t worry, I know you’ll figure it out. <3**

Shaw types back several angry and increasingly vulgar messages, but receives no response. Maybe communication uses up Root’s energy? Shaw puts the phone down. Aggravating as the woman can be, Shaw would rather have her alive.

She bends down to look at the Samaritan agent, and notices blood coating the bottom of her shirt, the dark clothes making it difficult to see. Shaw tugs the shirt up, looking for the source, finding what looks like a gunshot wound.

Albeit one several weeks old, and mostly healed. The blood is fresh, though.

Shaw remembers how quickly the agents that Root had shot in the restaurant had seemed to recover, and an idea starts to form in her mind.

She stands up, locates a scalpel, and bends back down. Placing the blade over the largely-healed wound, she whispers, “I hope you can feel this,” and cuts.

“I’ve got someone on the way to —“ Detective Carter steps into the room, and draws up short at the sight of Dr. Shaw plunging her fingers into the Samaritan agent’s recently reopened wound. “Now what the hell are you doing?”

Shaw stands up, clutching something in her bloody fingers. “She had a gunshot wound,” she tells the detective. “Looked like it was weeks old. But she’s got one of Root’s bullets in her. Couldn’t have been shot more than a few hours ago.”

Carter’s expression indicates a belief that Dr. Shaw has lost her mind. “How do you figure it was only a few hours ago?”

“Take a look,” Shaw invites, gesturing at the woman on the floor. “The wound’s already sealing up again.”

Carter bends down to investigate, and sees that the precise cut made by Dr. Shaw has, in fact, begun healing. She watches, fascinated and more than slightly disgusted, as the flesh inside slowly knits itself back together. “Now that,” she says softly. “Is something I’ve never seen before.” She stands back up, and moves to get a closer look at the bullet in Shaw’s hand. “You sure that’s Root’s?”

“Yeah,” Shaw replies, peeling the bloody glove off, bullet inside. “I got them for her for Valentine’s.”

Carter raises her eyebrows. “Sometimes your relationship scares me, Shaw.” She looks back at the woman on the floor. “You got any more impromptu surgeries planned before my guys take her out of here?”

“I’d like to get a blood sample.” Shaw says, quietly, another idea entering her mind. “It’s possible that the… whatever it is in that woman’s biology could have something to do with her blood.”

“You want to give it to Root,” Carter says, suddenly understanding the doctor’s train of thought. “You think that will work? Sounds kind of… comic book-y.”

Shaw grimaces. “I know.” She looks back at Root, lying on her bed, pale and fragile. “It might be her only shot, though. If the blood type’s a match.”

Carter nods. “All right. We can keep her in custody here, for a few hours at least.”

Shaw calls a nurse in, who looks extremely unnerved by the scene before him, but does as instructed and collects a blood sample from the woman on the floor.

“You don’t need one from Root, too?” Carter inquires as the nurse turns to leave.

“No,” Shaw answers. “Took a blood sample from her a while ago.” At Carter’s look, she says, “What? She’s always getting herself injured and I have to patch her up. Thought it might come in handy someday.”

***

  
****

**10:31 PM**

Dr. Shaw takes the liberty of drawing a few more samples from the Samaritan agent, in case the tests go well. She’s not entirely sure how much she’d need; most of her plan is based on vague guesswork and blind hope. But it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

She looks over at Root. The agent’s breathing has gotten shallower, her skin paler. Her heart rate has stayed steady, at least. A few nurses had gotten her out of her blood-soaked clothes, and now she’s in a hospital gown. She looks oddly small, vulnerable.

The results of the blood test are delivered, and Shaw scowls as she looks at it. Not a match.

**SENT FROM Root**

**I’m thinking about getting some lingerie for you.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Not that your utilitarian approach to underclothes isn’t appealing, but it would be nice to mix it up a bit, don’t you think?**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**What the fuck is wrong with you?**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Just making conversation, sweetie.**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**I’m trying to stop you from dying so why don’t you quit bullshitting and fucking help me**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**I found the bullet in the Samaritan agent. I thought I could give you her blood, but it’s not a match. What am I supposed to do now?**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Sorry, honey. You have to figure it out yourself.**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**Why**

**SENT FROM Root**

**I won’t get too philosophical, because I know it annoys you, but it’s important for you to do this for yourself.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Like in a video game. You could just look up all the answers, but that wouldn’t feel very satisfying, would it? It has to come from you.**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**I don’t play videogames**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Sameen, by now you should know better than to try lying to me. ;)**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**What if I can’t figure it out**

**SENT FROM Root**

**You can. I believe in you.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**I’ll let you go for now, sweetie. It looks like you’ve got company.**

Shaw sends several interrogative messages after this, but receives no response. Aggravated, she puts her phone down and glances around for this ‘company’ she’s supposed to have. No one else is in the room, and most of the hospital is quiet this time of night. The tenor of the conversation suggests that Root was referring to an aggressive presence, likely Samaritan, sending more agents to try and recover their downed colleague, or Root, or both. Shaw peeks through the blinds and looks down to the hospital parking lot, and locates a large, black van with heavily tinted windows. Samaritan, in all their endless subtlety.

A plan forms in her mind. 

And, she has to admit, it is incredibly satisfying coming to the realization herself.

Now she just has to avoid getting killed in the process.

She finds Detective Carter seated in a chair a few yards down the hallway, who looks up at her approach. “Any news?”

“Yeah,” Shaw says. “Bad guys incoming. I’ve got a plan, but we need to clear this floor first.”

***

  
****

**10:42 PM**

Dr. Shaw stands in front of the elevator, watching the number on the display slowly tick upward. They’d managed to clear the reception area, but many of the patients on the floor were too invalid to be moved, and with the time available being very limited, Shaw and Carter had settled for simply moving the ones in between the elevator and Root’s room. Samaritan has no reason to go after anyone except Root, and/or anyone who tries to prevent them from doing so. Shaw just needs to deal with them quick enough that they don’t think of using the patients as hostages.

Not that it would matter. Shaw does not subscribe to the idea that all lives are equal. Root’s is paramount.

Her phone buzzes 

**SENT FROM Root**

**How do you feel about a whip?**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Not that your impressive collection of knives has ever let us down before.**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**When you wake up I’m going to throttle you.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Choking! That’s something we haven’t tried. Could be fun.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**I’ll go first, if you’re nervous.**

**SENT FROM Shaw**

**I am going to kill you in a non-sexual way.**

**SENT FROM Root**

**Sweetie, you’ve never done _anything_ in a non-sexual way.**

The elevator reaches her floor. Shaw puts her phone away (resisting the urge to crush it into powder), and takes a deep breath.

Show time.

The elevator door rolls open, revealing three black-clad Samaritan agents. Two men, one woman. They each hold a gun at the ready, but they do so somewhat languidly, almost flippantly.

One of the men steps forward. “We’re just here for Miss Groves. Step aside, and we have no reason to hurt you.”

“No.” Shaw says flatly. The man shrugs, and shoots her.

The impact throws her back, her body colliding with the edge of the reception desk. Her head slams backward onto the hard surface, and her consciousness wavers. Fortunately, the incredible pain in her midsection keeps her awake. As the Samaritan agents begin to move down the hall, Shaw feels her battered body begin to reknit itself; the effects of the blood she had injected herself with just minutes earlier. Hadn’t been a match for Root. But she found a use for it anyway. 

One of the men steps past her, and her arm whips out, another syringe in hand, this one containing a sedative. It makes contact about mid-way up his thigh. He turns, surprised by the sudden prick, then collapses, eyes rolling back in his head. Shaw pulls Root’s gun from her jacket and fires three times at the other man. He hits the floor hard.

It won’t take long for him to recover, but in seconds she’s on top of him, syringe in his upper arm. Awareness fades from his eyes.

The woman, by now aware of the threat, doesn’t go for her gun. Instead, a violent, invisible force takes hold of Shaw and hurls her against a wall. Root’s gun drops from her hand. Dimly, she assesses the damage. At least two ribs broken. Possibly one of her legs. She wonders if the blood can fix broken bones.

The woman stalks toward Shaw, but never makes it. Carter rises from her hiding place behind the desk and looses several shots. The agent’s body lands right in front of Shaw, and she quickly injects the woman before she can rise.

Wracked with pain, Shaw manages to stand, then collapses when she tries to put weight on her right leg. Broken after all. Great. An unpleasant grinding sensation in her chest tells her that the blood is also capable of healing broken bones, albeit painfully. She’s fairly close to blacking out now. 

Carter steps out from behind the desk, gun held low, and checks each Samaritan agent to ensure that they’re unconscious before crouching down beside Shaw. “You all right?”

“No,” Shaw says, checking the wound on her midsection, finding it already mostly sealed, though still occasionally oozing blood. “I will be soon.”

“My backup will be here within five minutes, then we’ll get all these guys in cuffs.”

“We need to get blood samples from all of them,” Shaw groans, as she sets the bone in her leg so the blood doesn’t end up healing it crooked. “One of them might be a match.”

***

  
****

**11:21 PM**

Shaw’s wounds are mostly healed, though her right leg still twinges. The healing had slowed down, perhaps indicating a limited time span or energy capacity to the Samaritan blood, but another injection had the preternatural mending moving along again.

One of the downed Samaritan agents had indeed proven to be a match for Root, and moments after Shaw had given her the transfusion, Root’s vitals had started to improve. Shaw had taken the oxygen mask off her about ten minutes ago when her breathing leveled out, and wounds from her shootout had begun to seal themselves up. She had slowly regained consciousness a few minutes after. 

“You know,” she says weakly, her voice rasping. “If you wanted to get me into bed, all you had to do was ask.”

Shaw snorts. “The whole seduction thing doesn’t really work when you’re wearing a hospital gown.”

Root looks down, apparently noticing her attire for the first time. She looks up. “I can take it off, if you want.”

Shaw rolls her eyes. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Love you too, sweetie.”

***

  
****

**1:50 AM**

John Reese walks past the doctor and her patient as they leave the hospital. Neither of them take note of him. It’s a talent of his.

A quiet voice in his head directs him across to the emergency room entrance, and then a little beyond, where a few unoccupied ambulances rest. 

He does feel a bit guilty, he supposes, as he pulls out of the parking lot, about stealing an ambulance. But he’ll have it back soon enough. With any luck, they won’t even notice its absence.

Though to be fair, luck is rarely required when one is allied with a god.

***

  
****

**2:05 AM**

Despite being almost entirely healed in a matter of hours, Root insists she is still in need of a doctor’s attentions, and obviously the only attention she has any interest in comes from Shaw, so she accompanies the doctor back to her apartment. She is also too unwell to make herself anything to eat, and lays on the couch making puppy-dog eyes at Shaw until she sighs and goes into her kitchen to find some sort of sustenance for her patient/girlfriend/parasite.

Root then alternates between eating and cuddling aggressively with Shaw on the couch. Which, if Shaw’s honest, she doesn’t really mind.

“OK,” She announces, once she has deemed that Root has had enough recovery time. “You’re going to explain to me exactly what the hell is going on.”

Root frowns. “Dinner, I thought. And some quality time with my girl.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Shaw says. “What exactly does Samaritan want from you? What kind of power do you have?”

“Well,” Root starts with a smirk. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good with my tongue.”

Shaw resists the urge to grab Root’s throat and wring it, not least of all because she’d probably just get more aroused. “What,” she grinds out. “Was going on with your texts earlier?”

“What texts?”

“Root, I swear, if you —“

“Sameen,” Root says, laying a hand on Shaw’s leg. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. What texts?”

Shaw frowns. She pulls out her phone, the text conversation with ‘Root’ still pulled up. “So if this isn’t you, who the hell is it?”

Root looks at it, and something like understanding dawns in her eyes. “You really don’t have to worry about this, sweetie.”

“I’m not _worried_.” Shaw says. “I want to know. And until you tell me, I’m not having sex with you.”

Root looks at her in horror.

***

  
****

**3:34 AM**

Later that night - in a moment that Dr. Shaw will upon reflection consider to not be one of her finest - with Root’s face buried between her thighs, the doctor considers the possibilities opened by having a time-traveling girlfriend.

***

  
****

**5:06 AM**

Shaw’s phone buzzes, rousing her from her refreshing hour of sleep. Unable to force her eyes to open, she reaches blindly across to the endtable, and several moments later locates the damn thing. Eyes opening and then squinting against the sudden burst of light from the phone, she looks at the message.

From Root. Of course.

Though clearly a Root temporally distinct from the warm, sweaty Root presently clinging to her and snoring softly. Gently (or at least as gently as she feels inclined to be this early in the morning), she pries Root’s arms and legs away and wearily rolls out of bed. She decides to revise her earlier opinion. Nothing good can possibly come of time travel.

**Author's Note:**

> Presumably Shaw went back and finished that woman's autopsy at some point.


End file.
